‘Warhammer: The Old World’ – Three Warriors of Chaos Armies To Honor The Dark Gods
Take a look at a trio of vicious ideas for Warhammer: The Old World’s Warriors of Chaos army.
The Old World has been out for over two years now. A lot of us have a lot of fun building armies and playing the game. Many others are just now getting into the game and feeling things out. It’s an exciting time to be a Warhammer fan. One of my favorite parts of playing the game is building armies and designing lists. There is a lot of fun to be had here and it can help translate to fun on the table top.
So I wanted to start taking a look at the various armies and playing around with some lists. I did this when Renegade Crowns first came out, and a few others. Today I wanted to look at Warriors of Chaos. These aren’t all meant to be the most meta or powerful lists around, but each one is interesting in its own way and I hope still packs some punch.
List #1 – Dragonfroce!
Warriors of Chaos-1999 pts
Warhammer: The Old World, Warriors of Chaos
Sorcerer Lord, Heavy armour, Mark of Chaos [Mark of Nurgle], Wizard [Level 3 Wizard], Chaos Dragon, 2x Favour of the Gods, Dark Magic – 500
Exalted Champion, Great weapon, Heavy armour, Shield, Mark of Chaos [Mark of Nurgle], General, Chaos Dragon, Crown of Everlasting Conquest, Brazen Collar, 2x Favour of the Gods – 496
12 Forsaken, Mutated weapons (Hand weapons), Heavy armour, Forsaken by Slaanesh – 228
12 Forsaken, Mutated weapons (Hand weapons), Heavy armour, Forsaken by Slaanesh – 228
9 Marauder Horsemen, Flails, Light armour, Shields, Chaotic Cult [None], Formation [Skirmishers], Marauder Horsemaster (champion), Unnatural Fortitude – 142
Warpfire Dragon, Wicked Claws, Warpfire Blast, Full plate armour (Draconic scales), Level 1 Wizard, Battle Magic – 405
How The List Works
This is honestly a pretty straight forward and pure example of a Warriors of Chaos List. You’ve got three big old dragons to charge forward and bully the enemy. That’s basically what the list does. Can you get there and start stomping? Yes, then you’ve got a good chance at winning. Can they kill you first or avoid you and use Monster Hunter Tapestry/Earthen Ramparts to deny you a lot of attacks? Then you might be screwed. It’s low model count and big on offence.
Of course the list does have a little more to it than that. A couple units of Forsaken make for a fast aggressive core to hold objectives and help chew through big enemy blocks. You’ve got a fast T4 unit of Horsemen for screening and objective holding. The LVL 3 is Nurgle to let him cast Fleshy Abundance and also maybe get some other spells off. You’ve got some MR and a couple wizards to help dispel things so it’s not totally helpless in magic and has a little shooting. You can also pretty much endlessly play around with the load out and even riders of the two dragons as long as you keep them around 500 pts.
List #2 – The Wolves Have Come
365 – Daemon Princes, Light Armour, Fly (9), Mark of Chaos Undivided, General, Wizard Level 1, Battle Magic, Trailblazer’s Hauberk, Infernal Puppet, Favour of the Gods, Brazen Collar
469 – Exalted Champion, Great Weapon, Mark of Tzeentch, Chaos Dragon, Favour of the Gods, Crown of Everlasting Conquest
166 – Exalted Sorcerer, Mark of Tzeentch, Chaos Steed, Wizard Level 1, Lore of the Shadowlands, Power Scroll, Lore Familiar
35 – 5 Chaos Warhounds, Vanguard
35 – 5 Chaos Warhounds, Vanguard
97 – 6 Marauder Horsemen, Flail, Skirmishers, Unnatural Fortitude, Marauder Horsemaster
35 – 5 Chaos Warhounds, Vanguard
97 – 6 Marauder Horsemen, Flail, Skirmishers, Unnatural Fortitude, Marauder Horsemaster
67 – 5 Marauder Horsemen, Cavalry Spear, Marauder Horsemaster
68 – 5 Marauder Tribe Berserkers, Flail, Ambushers, Unnatural Fortitude, Headtaker
68 – 5 Marauder Tribe Berserkers, Flail, Ambushers, Unnatural Fortitude, Headtaker
158 – 5 Marauder Tribe Huscarls, Flail, Light Armour, Drilled, Mark of Tzeentch, Unnatural Fortitude, First Sword, Sword of Might, Charmed Shield
170 – Gigantic Spawn of Chaos, Gigantic Spawn of Nurgle
170 – Gigantic Spawn of Chaos, Gigantic Spawn of Nurgle
How The Wolves Play
This is a different style of Chaos list running the Wovles of the Sea Army of Infamy, though it still relies on some hard hitting beat sticks. The first thing you’ll notice is that the army has a lot of small cheap chaff units. These can all run around causing all kinds of havok and gumming up the enemy works. Almost all are fast or ambush and most of the are T4+. They can also hit harder then they might appear so small enemy units are in real danger here. You’ve also got a strong Huscarl champion to challenge for first turn. Against most lists that means you’ll be going first with little issue and that’s big for the list.
The list also makes great use of it’s characters. First up you’ve got a scouting Daemon Prince. Between scouting and fly (9) he can pretty drop anywhere he wants on turn 1, which you should almost always have. That lets him stay safe and get into optimal puppet range. While he’s not the scariest DP in combat, he can still pick off weaker units/characters in the backfield. The dragon I think really speaks for itself as another big scary beat stick that will get into the enemy fast. The lvl 1 may seem a little odd at first, but has a key roll to play here. Their job is take Crawling Mists to let the Spawn move twice giving them a lot more mobility (they can’t charge with the reserve move, but it helps them get around really quick on the first couple turns).
Basically when fighting this list you’ve got a good chance of starting your turn 1 with a dragon and 2 spawn in charge range and a DP in your backfield and lots of minor units blocking you in. It’s aggressive and scary. It’s also very Chaos, but it can be outfought.
List #3 – The Breaker
420 – Daemon Princes, Light Armour, Fly (9), Mark of Nurgle, Extra Arm, General, Wizard Level 1, Battle Magic, Ogre Blade, Armour of Meteoric Iron, Favour of the Gods
213 – Exalted Champion, Shield, Mark of Chaos Undivided, Chaos Steed, Cackling Blade, Favour of the Gods
316 – Sorcerer Lord, Mark of Tzeentch, Chaos Steed, Wizard Level 4, Dark Magic, Spell Familiar, Infernal Puppet
285 – 7 Chaos Knights, Lance, Mark of Tzeentch, Champion, Standard Bearer, Totem Of Wrath, Musician
266 – 14 Forsaken, Forsaken by Slaanesh
91 – 7 Marauder Horsemen, Cavalry Spear, Skirmishers, Marauder Horsemaster
405 – Warpfire Dragons, Wizard Level 1, Battle Magic
How The List Works
For the final list this is the one I’ve been using in the World Team Championship Online event. Now this list is really designed to fight certain lists such as Vampires and a lot of Tomb Kings lists. So it’s not really an all comers normal list, but it is pretty strong. For Core you’ve got your three units. The Forsaken are fast scoring and really good at chewing through masses of cheap infantry. They blender Zombies, Grave/Tomb Guard and Skeletons. The Horsemen are there it protect the characters from shootings and be a scoring unit. The Knights can act as a wizard bunker and also help buff the Exalted Champion to AP -2. They tend to draw a lot of fire, but that’s not a bad thing. When they and the Forsaken can get off a double charge few things can stand before it.
The Daemon Prince is built to be a real combat monster and is one of the strongest fighters in the game, with amazing stats and a 5+/4++/5++ save. Nurgle also makes him more survivable. For magic he’s either taking Fleshy for +1T or Hammerhand to get extra attacks to chew through enemies. He does take some finesse to use as one wrong move and poof you are down 600 points, but he can put out the pain. The Exalted is there to just blender enemy units and rack up combat res vs blocks of Undead. The Wizard gets some decent support in and is often running alone. Battle Lust is a great force multiplier and makes things a lot more reliable. He’s also surprising good in combat.
Lastly the Warpy is likely my MVP of the list He’s a great tech piece for turning off enemy ward saves, and getting a little shooting in. For magic I’ll normally try to get fireball and if not take hammerhand. Since he can’t be challenged out it does give him just a ton of attacks to dump into a unit. However having Fireball on a large target is also useful. Having a bit of shooting can really help put pressure on the enemy. You do need to be careful using him so you don’t turn off your own ward saves (especially on the DP) and vs cannons he’s a lability, but still a really good unit. It’s a very strong list, but does really struggle vs shooting overall.
Let us know what you think of these lists, down in the comments!
